make all zeng hu augments besides the faceplate not company specific

[Lmwevil]

it's super weird that zeng hu get some rp fluff things that NT can't use since we're all under the same umbrella of the SCC and it would logically be pretty easy to just rip an augment out of a zeng hu employee who defected and backwards design the implant. 

plus it was a really weird and hamfisted way to force people to play zeng hu contractors - while giving nothing unique to Hephaestus or NanoTrasen or even Idris. 

it sets a weird precedent that people from different companies get a literal mechanical advantage (telescopic eyes for paramedic for example), and makes balancing super wack. companies should have a draw for their themes and aesthetic, not for their gameplay advantage

but things that should remain company specific are things that actually represent the company, the zeng hu face plate is a rad example of something that represents the company and is a really interesting concept, IRU coats, etc etc. 

 

[Alberyk]

There is lore for that already. They are meant to be rewards to good employees. We also don't need every security officer with free binoculars.

[ImmortalRedshirt]

Or at the very least, the memory and emotion augs shouldn't be Zheng-locked. Let other corps have a share of the dystopia!

[Peppermint]

Fairly sure the OOC point of them was to encourage people to play ZH. Seems counterproductive to remove them.

[Lordnesh]

As much as I would personally love to have them unlocked, I also agree that it's important to differentiate the corporations, to give them their own identity. What is really like to see is more of this kinda stuff. Like these augs and the Idris coats.

[canon35]

They exist to play into new themes with Zeng-Hu which exist as a draw to the corporation. Removing them is counter-productive to that. I'd prefer to see more regular generic augments added or other corp-specific ones (Within reason.) as opposed to just making all the Zeng-hu augments generic. 

[Carver]

11 hours ago, Peppermint said:

Fairly sure the OOC point of them was to encourage people to play ZH. Seems counterproductive to remove them.

Ah yes, encourage people by making a faction objectively superior to the others available.

Lore and writing should be what gives people a draw, not having mechanical augments arbitrarily locked to a faction (especially when a majority of them are so trivially mundane in design that anyone could replicate them).

12 hours ago, Alberyk said:

There is lore for that already. They are meant to be rewards to good employees. We also don't need every security officer with free binoculars.

If the zoom-eyes are a potential balance problem, then why do they exist at all? Instead this means you're liable to have antags with free binoculars which is no better.

[Lmwevil]

6 hours ago, Carver said:

Lore and writing should be what gives people a draw, not having mechanical augments arbitrarily locked to a faction (especially when a majority of them are so trivially mundane in design that anyone could replicate them).

absolutely my point, trying to encourage people to play a faction because they are mechanically superior is fucking insane and a total hack fix of not having enough aesthetic sprites or interesting lore to back them up 

[WickedCybs]

Nothing about the current roster of Zeng-Hu augments strikes me as particularly "insane" here nor do they seem to be causing issues or having people flock to Zeng-Hu in droves for the "advantages". Yeah, they can zoom out and use their eyes as flashlights. Unathi can get telescoping eye augments too and drills in their ams along with their other myriad bonuses I don't think I need to list here. Tajara get night vision, a speed bonus, the works. Skrell are similar to humans but are slightly faster, can't slip, get pisonics. There's a lot of different ways people can try to get mechanical advantages here, but this is a roleplay game in the end. 

The main angle I can take this seriously from, is that the lock seems arbitrary. Personally though, I do not mind it. Limiting it to Zeng-Hu means only research and medical are really going to be seeing these augs, which I think is better than having them in every department. 

[KingOfThePing]

I 100% agree with Cybs. I agree so much that I can't think of anything else to add

[Carver]

2 hours ago, WickedCybs said:

The main angle I can take this seriously from, is that the lock seems arbitrary. Personally though, I do not mind it. Limiting it to Zeng-Hu means only research and medical are really going to be seeing these augs, which I think is better than having them in every department. 

As mentioned earlier, the binocular eyes if unbalanced probably shouldn't be an augment to begin with. The flashlight eyes are just.. strange. Does Z-H have a patent on making your optics shine or something? The only ones with flavour are the memory/emotional augs and the plate, with the former two making no sense that they wouldn't be on the market given how profitable they'd be.

2 hours ago, WickedCybs said:

There's a lot of different ways people can try to get mechanical advantages here, but this is a roleplay game in the end. 

 

'This is a roleplaying game' is why their addition at all struck me as dumb. No other faction needed these to get players - if someone truly cared about a faction, they'd play it for the aesthetics and leveraging the lore to make their character a bit more interesting. There is no roleplay in either the binocs or the flashlight.

2 hours ago, WickedCybs said:

Nothing about the current roster of Zeng-Hu augments strikes me as particularly "insane" here nor do they seem to be causing issues or having people flock to Zeng-Hu in droves for the "advantages". Yeah, they can zoom out and use their eyes as flashlights. Unathi can get telescoping eye augments too and drills in their ams along with their other myriad bonuses I don't think I need to list here. Tajara get night vision, a speed bonus, the works. Skrell are similar to humans but are slightly faster, can't slip, get pisonics.

The amusing thing is that I'd seen next-to-no Z-H characters for years. They did indeed flock to it, given there was no population of Z-H contractors before these augments. As for Unathi, that's a poor equivalence given they're renowned for being incredibly unbalanced in their mechanics as a whole. Taj on the other hand are kept in check by both potent mechanical downsides, and a strict whitelist oversight on their behaviour. Skrell advantages are effectively non-existent, and counter-balanced by humans having their own advantages.

Factions so far were exempt from all of this. There was no upside or downside to playing a particular faction, barring NT being allowed into Command roles. You did not have Zavodskoi Officers being objectively superior to NanoTrasen Officers, yet now you have Zeng-Hu Medical being objectively superior to NanoTrasen Medical.

 

At the very minimum remove the binocs entirely and make the flashlights available to all. The emotion/memory ones are fair in being RP-only (if unfortunate to be locked as they are), and the faceplate is a stellar example of how faction-locked augs should be - wholly aesthetic and giving a point of flavour to spark conversation.

[KingOfThePing]

Give every faction their own distinctive shit and make 100% fluff and RP only. Problem solved 

[Faye <3]

this forum loves to take the relatively inane shit and act like ZH contractors are given the keys to the fuckin sat-auth. THEY'RE EYE-FLASHLIGHTS. they're not even that bright !!! who cares !! grow up!!!!

 

i think that rather than making these augs available to everyone, a MUCH better solution is to give every fac thematically relevant augs n stuff.

Edited July 26, 2021 by Faye <3

[Doxxmedearly]

It's lore-driven and intentionally split. Just as species have mechanical differences, corps can, too. Calling ZH objectively superior in its department is such a lukewarm take I don't even know where to start. It does not unbalance things to let medical and science people have their company-specific cool flashlight eyes.

Mountains out of molehills, etc. Lore backs it, and it represents the company, which you've stated you wanted to see in your OP.

Voting for dismissal.

 

[DeadLantern]

There is like 0 mechanical difference. The squares are so small when you use the telescopic eyes that it is only useful in certain contexts. The eye flashlights have less shine than a flashlight. Not to mention that other races get similar buffs... who cares, really? This is so minor and I like the fluff for Zeng-Hu.

[ImmortalRedshirt]

Fuck it, let's try to solve this the cool way.

 

[Carver]

7 hours ago, Doxxmedearly said:

It's lore-driven and intentionally split. Just as species have mechanical differences, corps can, too. Calling ZH objectively superior in its department is such a lukewarm take I don't even know where to start. It does not unbalance things to let medical and science people have their company-specific cool flashlight eyes.

Yet it raises the question of why flashlight eyes are company specific, why would they have a patent for making optics glow brighter?

Objectively superior is in strong regard to built-in binoculars, which are such a strong utility that near-every role can get strong use of them, especially if rolling or pressed into antagonism.

[Lmwevil]

For context every other corporation does not get anything that provides even a remote mechanical advantage currently. every other corporation is purely aesthetic difference from the base jobs on station, besides Zeng Hu. This is wacky 

 

using races isn't a good argument, we all know unathi are insane in combat, taj get their spines etc etc. species balance and design decisions =/= contractor balance and design 

either zeng hu remains as is and the other contractors get some kind of mechanical difference, or zeng hu's differences need to be only aesthetic. but if it is the former, that needs to be a codified decision from the dev team, otherwise it will remain nebulous like it is rn 

[MattAtlas]

On 27/07/2021 at 09:55, Lmwevil said:

For context every other corporation does not get anything that provides even a remote mechanical advantage currently. every other corporation is purely aesthetic difference from the base jobs on station, besides Zeng Hu. This is wacky 

The solution is to code more things for other corporations. Zeng-Hu was just the only corporatiion that got this at the time because it was in dire need of a facelift and incentives for people to play them, since if you recall before this rework Zeng-Hu had a population of zero and absolutely no flavour going for it. Other corporations were self sustaining.

On 27/07/2021 at 09:55, Lmwevil said:

that needs to be a codified decision from the dev team

It seems to me rather obvious that other corporations can get mechanically useful augments.

Voting for dismissal.